CNN has discovered the appeal of feature programming, led by the inimitable Anthony Bourdain and his record ratings, a smart move on days when the news cycle isn’t dominated by a single breaking story.

Adding Lisa Ling’s “This is Life” to the Sunday lineup is an effort to spread the wealth.

Now comes “Roots: Our Journeys Home,” featuring a number of CNN anchors and correspondents tracing family histories. Nightly segments run this week, culminating in a two-hour special next Monday, Oct. 20. Anderson Cooper and Michaela Pereira will host the show featuring 12 of the network’s hosts’ and anchors’ stories.

Bourdain’s Paraguayan roots, Pereira’s adoption journey, Cooper’s poorer side of the family (ie., not the Vanderbilts), Jake Tapper’s discovery that his ancestors fought on “the wrong side” in the American Revolution, Erin Burnett’s ties to a remote Scottish island, Don Lemon’s roots in the West African slave trade, Wolf Blitzer’s family in the WWII death camp at Auschwitz, Sanjay Gupta’s roots in India and Pakistan and more are explored through the week.

The tone can be a little schmaltzy, the feature a bit feature-y for the news network. But this is the evolution of a network in need of some juice.

“Where is flight 370?” the CNN graphic reads. “Did the pilot’s politics play a part?” “Next: Could the plane be a weapon?” The unsolved mystery continues. There’s an endless amount of time to fill on cable news networks and CNN is making the most of it, scrutinizing every shred of information, misinformation, rumor, conspiracy theory and even otherworldly possibility regarding the mystery of the missing Flight 370.

We’ve learned more than we wanted to know about radar and flying in stealth mode. We’ve heard the theories about how skilled a pilot would have to be to evade detection. As the days drag on and the potential routes, and possible scenarios unfold, the TV visuals show no sign of slowing.

The appointment of Jeff Zucker to head CNN’s operations worldwide is stunning for several reasons. Zucker is renowned for failing upwards (after a brilliant hands-on performance as a young producer at NBC’s “Today,” he had many missteps at NBC Entertainment and a disastrous reign in the top management job at the Peacock network). And he’s more businessman than news guy. That seems to be what CNN’s higher ups at Turner Broadcasting want.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Zucker owned his mistakes at NBC (he didn’t need to mention the Leno debacle, the lack of drama development that resulted, or the fact that NBC went from 1st to 4th under his reign). And he stated his intention to broaden the definition of news at CNN. “News is about more than politics and war,” he said more than once. The goal is to make CNN “vibrant” and “exciting”–even on slow news days, when CNN isn’t the go-to choice.

Will a broader range of talent show up on CNN under Zucker? Will his wider definition of news mean more human interest/softer stories? Might he launch a new prime time show with bigger names? Can he “supersize” Anderson Cooper? Will he hire Katie Couric once her syndication contract ends? (He’ll leave “Katie” as a producer mid-January.) The news surrounding the news is going to be fun to watch.

Comments Off on New CNN president Jeff Zucker reveals his fixes for network

“Anderson,” the daytime talk show that the cable newsman is doing in part to show that he’s multifaceted, has so far been slightly embarrassing. There’s a way he’s toying with being ever so revealing without being exactly honest.
Yes, he’s cute when he wrinkles his nose and giggles. Yes, he’s entitled to a fun side beyond his role as broadcast journalist, reporting from the world’s hot spots. Sure, he’s as welcome as anyone to enjoy reality TV, the “Real Housewives” and Snooki. But when Snooki assures him that the spray tanning won’t hurt, and Anderson responds that “it might hurt my dignity,” it gives us pause.
Is that ha-ha funny or creepy-wince funny?

CNN is replaying the Christine O’Donnell walkout on Piers Morgan’s show, understandably using it as a promotional tool. The Tea Party favorite couldn’t take the heat when asked about something she’d written in her book, regarding her views on gay marriage. Clearly it was a win for Piers, making him look like a tougher interviewer than he is; a black eye for the former Delaware Senate candidate, and a PR win for the news network.

Less newsy was Anderson Cooper’s descent into giggles on the subject of Gerard Depardieu’s airplane pee incident, which has been shared and remarked on more than anything on CNN in some time. And it is funny to see him break up and try, vainly, to get himself back in anchor mode. But the pun-filled script he was reading was about ten times too long; the goofy “Ridiculist” gives him leeway to talk about inanities but–enough. (Don’t say “hold it.”)

Some observers lamented the fact that CNN is getting more mileage out of this fluff than anything it has done in a long time. Stop the hand-wringing. There’s plenty of grim reporting from all corners.

All the cable news shows are building silliness into the lineup, Rachel Maddow mixing cocktails on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann offering a countdown of the week’s silliest headlines on Current. Chris Matthews getting into the weird before shifting gears to “play Hardball” on MSNBC.

How do you feel about the boom in silly, ridiculous, weird tidbits on news shows? Are things bad enough that we need the comic relief?

Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper will anchor their respective CBS and CNN programs from Africa tonight, bringing the bright light of network and cable TV to the growing famine crisis. Maybe the glare will raise global awareness.

Pelley will anchor the “CBS Evening News” from East Africa, and Erica Hill will report from the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya for The Early Show.

Cooper will spend the week in Africa for “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN. “Somalia: On the Frontlines of Famine” includes interviews with Jill Biden on the Somalia/Kenya border as she traveled there to see the hunger crisis forcing refugees to flee to Somalia. Cooper will also report from Mogadishu, embedding with African Union troops who are fighting the Islamic insurgents who are denying aid to starving Somalis.

Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show, “Anderson,” coming Sept. 12 (locally on Channel 20), won’t take away from his multiple other jobs. He’ll still do the foreign correspondent and hot spot t-shirt-wearing witness gig for CNN. And he’ll still be a “60 Minutes” contributor.

The critical consensus, after much talk about his switch to friendly blue t-shirts away from standard CNN black, is that he’ll be good at the talk format. But that not many people are likely to watch. Is it the right demo? Do daytime folks know Anderson the primetime newsman? He’ll have to prove himself in the looser format.

Speaking of loose, however, you can see AC loosening minute by minute in primetime, where he’s nearly giddy doing his Ridiculist on CNN.

Katie Couric and CBS News had fun with the “speed dating” concept at this year’s State of the Union speech.

Credit the Colorado delegation for coming up with the seating plan featuring intermingled party members. The result was less jumping up and down, fewer applause interruptions, more serious listening. From a TV watcher’s point of view, it meant a radical shift from the one-side-of-the-room versus other-side-of-the-room tension. Visually, a literal truce. Maybe next year they all sit on each other’s laps.

A bulletin beyond vanity: When Bob Schieffer wondered aloud if enough Americans were alive to catch the “Sputnik moment” reference, Jeff Greenfield noted 71 percent of Americans were not alive in 1957 when Sputnik was launched. To which Couric volunteered that she most certainly was, as a child of ’57, and proud to say so on national television.

In this image from video released by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, co-hosts Regis Philbin, left, and Kelly Ripa are shown during the broadcast of "Live with Regis and Kelly," Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011, in New York. (Disney-ABC Domestic Television, via The Associated Press)

The news rendered hardcore fans speechless. Some wiped away tears.

Regis Philbin, the 28-year TV stalwart, is leaving the show Regis and Kelly. After hosting with Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa for multiple generations’ worth of viewers, Reege is going to step down from “Live with Regis and Kelly” later this year, though no date has been specified.

“There is a time. Everything must come to an end for certain people on camera — for certain old people,” said the effervescent 79-year old.

If Anderson Cooper didn’t already have a syndicated talk show in the works, he might have been a candidate to succeed Regis.

A few names that might be considered: Andy Cohen, reality TV producer and host; Mark Consuelos, Ripa’s husband; Ryan Seacrest, who by law must be considered for every entertainment media job that comes open.

CNN anchor and pop culture maven Anderson Cooper could be the next star of daytime. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cooper is “close to a deal for a syndicated daytime talk show.” The weekday talk show, intended for fall 2011, is a collaboration of “Warner Bros., Cooper and Cooper’s employers at CNN — who have an exclusive contract with the newsman. The deal, which has been in talks for more than a month and may close by the end of the week, calls for Cooper to continue hosting “360.”

With daytime television on the verge of enormous change (see story), the race is on to succeed Oprah Winfrey when she moves her empire to cable in January.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.